Sign the petition to General Motors

Earlier this week, a leak from a radical right-wing think tank lead to shocking revelations: the Heartland Institute is developing an alternate school curriculum to push climate change denial onto our children. Discrediting climate science is a core mission of Heartland, which retains a $300,000 staff dedicated to undermining the findings of the UN climate body, the IPCC.

Now it wants to take that fight to our schools and “re-educate” our kids to doubt the science behind climate change.

On Tuesday, information surfaced that General Motors is giving tens of thousands of dollars to the Heartland Institute. For General Motors, which manufactures the Chevy Volt and claims it wants to “proactively address the concerns posed by climate change,” this is hypocrisy in the extreme.

While General Motors has a mixed record on global warming, lately they’ve been doing all the right things, like investing heavily in the electric Chevy Volt. At the same time, they’ve been kept afloat by American taxpayers through a massive bailout. That means our tax dollars are ending up in the hands of the Heartland Institute. If that that equation feels wrong to you, it’s essential that you let GM know that their support of climate change denial is totally unacceptable. After you have added your name to our petition, and ask your friends and family to add their voices too.

The Heartland Institute is poised to spend $100,000 developing its curriculum for grades 7-12. The plan positions climate change as “a major scientific controversy.” If that sounds familiar, it’s because opponents of evolution have used similar arguments to introduce creationist ideas into the classroom.

All of this is par for the course for a group like Heartland, which made its name helping tobacco company Philip Morris question links between secondhand smoke and cancer. But the revelations about funding from General Motors and other mainstream corporations shows that support for Heartland is much broader than anyone ever knew.

Not surprisingly, reporters have already started asking GM and other companies to explain themselves. Amazingly, GM has defended the donation, saying “We support a variety or organizations that give careful and considerate thought to complex policy issues and Heartland is one of them.”

“Careful and considerate thought” are not words we would use to describe efforts to peddle false science and consciously mislead our nation’s youth about climate change. If you agree, it’s important that you let GM know. We know from past campaigns that public pressure from customers can have a huge impact on corporate behavior. So please take a moment to send a message to General Motors and Heartland’s other corporate backers to pull their funding immediately.

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